There's an "all things are possible for those who believe" edge to Patterson's advice that is biblical, yet it was non-biblical for him to apply that in a way that keeps domestic violence victims in harm's way of their abusers. Patterson forgot that even Christ purposely removed Himself from harm's way when violence threatened (of course, until His time to face the Cross came). Patterson's testimony that a woman he counseled got two black eyes before the Lord delivered her husband was suppose to support his counsel. All it really did was show the grace of God in that the abusive husband didn't land the woman in the hospital or worse. Patterson should have counseled her to at least separate from him until there was evidence he sought help for his out of control anger, and absent from intense counseling and God-given evidence of his transformation, separate from him for good through divorce. Yes, God hates divorce, but He also hates violence. The love of God compels husbands to love their wives as sacrificially as Christ loves the church. The love of God does NOT compel wives to suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands. It is this sort of off-balance advice that has led many to despise Scripture. Although Patterson may have meant well, he should step down.

The Tao or in Jesus’s teachings, the Holy Spirit or Comforter or Spirit of Truth, is discernible within the spirit as I listen to this. I perceive almost exactly the same unitive conscious of, later, the Christ (in John’s prologue, Ephesians 1, Colossians 1:14-18, the plurality of and the pattern of 3 in Genesis 1:26). After having done an extensive if not painful search which necessarily uprooted my mere ‘Belief System’ within the Christian ranks, I was finally happily forced to cease with the two major errors of Western Christianity. It is not happenstance that at precisely the same time the “Roman” Catholics deemed the Pope infallible that the Protestants and a highly opportunistic slew of theologians deemed the bible to be inerrant. Jeremiah 8:8 attempted to point this out but job security was paramount in importance after theology became big business. The reformation occurred remarkably along side the advent of the printing press and some excessively self-interested pastors following the 17th century enlightenment sorrowfully mauled the bible and even Jesus’s words into a fear based sect wherein one hardly had to be a loving person to live and die as a “Christian.” Calvinists were the worst. Their number had self-referentially already been filled for the evacuation plan to ‘heaven’ a long time ago and so any further preaching or writing of books was largely if not solely for books sales. The storyline was dead a long time ago. The Tao makes slugging one’s way through Western brimstone and job security a bit more discerning wherein one can more swiftly separate the truth statements from the theologian’s chaff.

This is just a clip, where is the rest of the audio? This posting is very selective.

Patterson's advice to abuse perpetrators and victims to seek professional counselling is one of the right things to do. This applies to anyone, but we must realise that don't learn the right things to do from the Bible. Whatever good advice and common sense you find in the Bible is what we as humans brought to it; the Bible is not some mystical source of morality, but actually, an interesting container of examples of the good and bad in humanity. Decent human beings already know the difference between good and bad, and offering help to someone in this way comes naturally to most of us. Anyone who says "divorce can never be the best solution", or can only be an option in the worst cases of abuse, is putting their worldview ahead of the welfare of others - one of the bad things to do.

Jesus would never have counseled a woman to stay with a man who was hitting her.
Never.
All women need to know that abuse is not a Christian value.
You have the right to live without violence in your life.
Patterson erred in his pastoral duties.

I have seen a surge of the American culture trying to use the media to attack respected leaders in the Christian community. The "news" craving, drama addicted followers of tweets and facebook have quickly surrounded the cherry picked sentences of people who lead in voicing the truth, like vultures. In this case, a counsel for not divorcing even under home abuse is a biblical principle. And American culture, different from a lot of cultures, have such an outcry about this situation, forgetting that divorce is not the only way to solve conflicts. Direct confrontation to the husband is the first measure, then bring in 2 to 3 witnesses as the bible teaches. People who simply subscribe to home abuse == divorce obviously has no knowledge of other cultures and has a very self centered world view. I have no interest to defend Paige but I don't see anything that he talked about being even controversial in the bible. Very disappointed that it has been made into such a big deal.